Overview

Living with Lynching: African American Lynching Plays, Performance, and Citizenship, 1890-1930 demonstrates that popular lynching plays were mechanisms through which African American communities survived actual and photographic mob violence. Often available in periodicals, lynching plays were read aloud or acted out by black church members, schoolchildren, and families. Koritha Mitchell shows these community performances and readings presented victims as honourable heads of household being torn from model domestic units by white violence, counter to the dominant discourses that depicted lynch victims as isolated brutes. Examining lynching plays as archival texts that embody broad networks of socio-cultural exchange in the lives of black Americans, Mitchell finds that audiences were rehearsing and improvising new ways of enduring in the face of widespread racial terrorism. Images of the black soldier, lawyer, mother, and wife helped readers assure each other that they were upstanding individuals who deserved the right to participate in national culture and politics. These powerful community coping efforts helped African Americans band together and withstand the nation's rejection of them as viable citizens.

Full Product Details

Author:   Koritha Mitchell
Publisher:   University of Illinois Press
Imprint:   University of Illinois Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.00cm , Height: 2.30cm , Length: 22.40cm
Weight:   0.408kg
ISBN:  

9780252078804

ISBN 10:   0252078802
Pages:   272
Publication Date:   25 July 2012
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In stock  
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Reviews

<p> <p> <p><p> An emphatic push to change how we understand, write about, and teach the phenomenon of lynching. -- H-SHGAPE <p>

Author Information

<p> Koritha Mitchell is an associate professor of English at The Ohio State University.

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